Grainline Hemlock t-shirt, or ‘the shirt of many holes’

I made a t-shirt! I sewed with jersey! These things are significant in themselves as 1) I don’t normally wear t-shirts and 2) I generally avoid sewing with jersey as much as possible because I am a wimp.

I picked up this stripey navy blue and white jersey from the Rag Market for just 50p a
metre. I know at that price I wouldn’t be getting the best quality fabric but when it’s that cheap it’s a good way of practising new skills without wasting lots of money. As I was making this on the cheap, I signed up for the newsletter and downloaded the free Hemlock t-shirt pattern from Grainline Studio. I’ve made their Linden sweatshirt previously, so I knew the pattern would be reliable and well drafted.

The Hemlock is a one-size-fits-all loose fitting longer sleeved t-shirt with a round neck and slightly dropped shoulders. I made no adjustments to the pattern for this first version at all and it still looks loose fitting on me. I reckon it’ll fit up to a size 18 loosely and be a little more snug on a 20/22 and very roomy on a 12 or less, so this is a really useful pattern to have in your stash. On me the sleeves are about 3/4 length, so hit me mid forearm. I prefer this length as I almost never wear long sleeves fully rolled down on jumpers or cardigans. It would be very easy to lengthen the sleeves to full length or shorten as required. I found the body of the t-shirt is very long though, bordering on tunic length on me, so although for my next version I will remove a few inches from the bottom. It would make a good knit dress pattern if lengthened.

The pattern went together really quickly, and I got to have a go at twin-needling. This has worked really nicely on the neckline but on the sleeves and hem it’s not great. I adjusted my bobbin tension and lengthened the stitch slightly but I’ve still got a few skipped stitches and now the top has been washed the stitches look really loose. Has anyone got any tips for perfect twin-needling?

I only got 1 wear out of this top before the fabric started to disintegrate – I discovered the first hole when I was getting pictures taken! I stuck it in the wash and it came out with a few more holes, so I wore it as a running top once but when it came out of the wash again it’s just shredding – the blue stripes seem to be a lot weaker than the white as this is where the holes are appearing, so I wonder if this has been caused by the print process? It’s pretty much unwearable now so I’ll keep it for practising twin-needle stitching and hemming so it won’t be wasted! I am a bit disappointed I only got the 1 wear though – I spent so long matching my stripes! I want to remake this striped version of the Hemlock – I’m thinking of doing it in a white and green stripe instead this time. I have some black jersey in my stash so I want to use that first before I buy anything else!